U.S. research on driving externalities shows old myths never die

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Several researchers from different countries and continents have approached how our car-centric lifestyles create internal and external costs. In other publications, these might also be referred to as direct and indirect costs. Admittedly, the nature of the beast makes the math complex and fuzzy – sometimes very, very fuzzy. Nonetheless, it creates a lot of space for philosophical and financial discussions, which I enjoy very much. So, let’s have a go at it.

AAA – Direct Cost of Owning and Operating a Vehicle

So far, we have established that cars can be very expensive to own and operate. The American Automobile Association (AAA) established that in 2023, the average new car will cost its driver over $12,000 per year to own and operate. They established the average cost per mile at $0.72. But that cost shoots up quickly in places like the Bay Area, where vehicles, insurance, fuel, tax, fees, parking – basically everything – are more expensive. Here, the cost of driving one mile goes quickly above $2 per vehicle mile traveled (VMT). And above $3 for anything bigger.

Based on AAA data, we can be very confident in stating that one mile of driving in the Bay Area costs the owner between $2 and $3. However, that is only the Direct or Internal Cost and leaves out many other costs and benefits.

“Suppose you don’t buy that new car and save that money instead in a balanced mutual fund. Start when you turn 16, and save a million dollars by 40. In 50 years, age 66, the car-free saver will have $11,199,484.63.” [Blog: Good Mom, Bad Mom]

Currently, the European Union (EU), especially Copenhagen and Denmark, is leading the research in establishing and using solid Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) metrics. Canada has several cities working on that, too. However, that was once an area where U.S. research dominated. That started as early as the 1930s but got more serious after WW2.

“Road User Benefit Analysis” (1952)

After working for a few years on establishing an approach, the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads and the American Association of State Highway Officials (AASTHO) published a report named “Road User Benefit Analysis for Highway Improvements.”

That document had an interesting chart recommended by the National Safety Council about “losses from death … are based on the following schedule”:

Age	Male	Female
0-14 years	$17,000	$8,000
15-55 years	$29,000	$17,000
56 years and older	$5,000	$3,500

There was a disclaimer saying, “The above figures should be used with caution,” and they probably should have added: “another topic you should not discuss at Thanksgiving dinner.”

Luckily, the National Safety Council also offered another way to calculate the cost of death through a simple division exercise. In that example, they determined a cost value of $89,000 per fatality.

“Full-Costs of Urban Transport, Part III” (1975)

Paper by Theodore E. Keeler, Kenneth A. Small, UC Berkeley

This 1975 document focused on the San Francisco Bay area and compared automobile, bus, and rail transportation. While looking at the infrastructure maintenance cost, it also added time and pollution to the numbers. Keeler determined that the bus is consistently more efficient than the automobile once traffic density exceeds 5,000 passengers per peak hour. Buses are also less costly compared to rail.

The paper might have been a little too biased towards buses, or it might just have been a 175-page document by UC Berkeley to undermine BART, a controversial project at the time.

In hindsight, BART—despite the current mismanagement—would still be regarded as a success story for the Bay Area and an example of a solid urban commuter line in the U.S.

“The Price of Mobility” (1993)

By ‘Uncovering the Hidden Costs of Transportation’ these researchers with the Natural Resources Defense Council concluded that the estimated costs per passenger mile traveled for different modes are:

bus: $0.35-$0.40
auto: $0.33-$0.53
rail: $0.48-$0.52

The researchers admit that in their cost/benefit analysis, they mostly focused on ‘cost’ and left out a lot of the ‘benefit’ part. The authors acknowledge that all three modes are heavily subsidized but also mention that automobile subsidies are often “hidden subsidies.”

They tried to find some of these ‘hidden subsidies‘ by looking at factors like personal costs, capital and operating costs, local services, energy, congestion, parking, collisions, pollution (air, noise, water), land loss, wetlands, urban sprawl, property values, building vibration damage, Transportation Equity, Historic buildings and archeological properties.

“Full Cost Analysis of Urban Passenger Transportation” (1996)

by the Texas Department of Transportation Research Center, the Federal Highway Administration, and the University of Texas.

By 1994, the University was already working on an evaluation model (MODECOST), including things like Infrastructure and Support Costs (Right of Way, Construction, Rehabilitation, Maintenance, Control), Modal Ownership Costs (depreciation, insurance, maintenance, fuel, tires, time) and Cost of Externalities (Pollution, energy security, collisions, congestion, global warming).

For example, to evaluate the cost of crashes, they were looking at data from 1991:

That year, some 6 million crashes involved around 10.6 million vehicles. 67% or over 4 million collisions were just property damage, but almost 2 million led to minor, moderate, severe or fatal injury. There were 36,895 crashes involving 54,724 vehicles, leading to 41,462 fatalities.

Texas University found in 1994 that one out of three car collisions also cost the health care system.

Good Governing requires solid Cost-Benefit Analyses (CBA)

Basically, National and International Research on the topic is endless. For every $3 dollars spent on transportation, society is chipping in another $1 or $2. In well-run International cities, cost-benefit analyses (CBA) are now widely used to assess transport projects. And when you ‘follow the money’ – the money always prefers people-centric projects. However, the last thing the U.S. did in the last 30 years was to change ‘cost-benefit’ to ‘benefit-cost,’ which means the methodology is now called BCA instead of CBA here. BCA has mostly been used to push for more car-centric projects rather than promoting more people-centric versions.

Basically, millions of dollars have been wasted on U.S. research that no city planner here is even slightly interested in. U.S. city planners, U.S. transportation engineers, and most importantly, politicians and their “sponsors” apparently don’t read or don’t want to read illuminating research papers like these.

Post.Scriptum.

Also interesting is that Transportation Equity isn’t something new that came up in 2020: “An auto-centric society such as ours can ultimately affect the poor, the handicapped, the elderly, children, and other groups that have limited access to autos. In addition, the poor are those most likely to be displaced by highway and parking construction. The elderly and the physically weak suffer the most from pollution.“

No, this is very old knowledge, which just means that long-time politicians like Diane Howard (non-existent Safe-Routes-To-School), Jeff Gee (SamTrans mismanagement), Alicia Aguirre (School Segregation), Warren Slocum (all of the above), have heard about this for over 20 years already. This means if we don’t see good governing, including ADA-compliance and Transportation Equity in San Mateo County right now, you know exactly who didn’t live up to their political potential.

The Bay Area needs younger, more professional, less corruptible blood in politics. That might take a few years; so far, the horizon looks bare.

More Information

1952: Road User Benefit Analysis for Highway Improvements
UC Berkeley: Full-Costs of Urban Transport – Part III
Natural Resources Defense Council: The Price of Mobility
UT Austin: Full Cost Analysis of Urban Passenger Transportation

Editor’s Note: The views and opinions expressed in all blog posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Redwood City Pulse or its staff.